Interesting Times : Loss and Renewal

The tree has been felled. What do I think?  

Like millions around the world I was alerted to breaking news last Thursday at breakfast time. The iconic sycamore tree at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall had been felled. At that time mis-information suggested it had simply blown over during Storm Arwen. But even I, a man who'd not held a chainsaw in anger for 30 years, could see this felling was at the hands of a much lesser force, Mankind.  

Like many I was angry, more angry than I could have possibly imagined.  I was upset, it really troubled me that this had happened. Who could be so crass as to have done this to a beautiful landmark. My best friend was on holiday in southern Spain. He lives literally on top of Hadrian's Wall, it runs underneath the kitchen of his converted Chapel, only a stone's throw from Sycamore Gap. I texted him. His replied was immediate and simple "Eh????". Exactly my reaction on hearing this. I couldn't believe what I was reading.

Quite a bit of that reading was hilarious as journalists who had no idea about this tree sprang into action. One copy in the on-line edition of the Daily Mirror had the headline,  "Beautiful 300 year old tree planted between 1840 and 1860 felled by vandals". Even with my mathematical incompetence I think they had the dates wrong. It was soon changed. The BBC Website ran a headline for a few minutes "Medieval tree visited by Robin Hood felled near Hadrian's Wall". Obviously that journalist's only fact gleaned from the press releases that speed around broadcast media's newsrooms was that Kevin Costner in the 1991 film Prince of Thieves travelled from Dover to Sycamore Gap on foot in one day.  Some copy was even more bizarre. The New York Times initially ran with Sycamore Tree felled near Scotland. I read on, realising how isolated the American press is. Northumberland was mentioned in the third paragraph and apparently Hadrian's Wall is a short drive from Scotland's beautiful capital home of whisky and Robbie Burn's. Of course American's only know about Scotland, so in modern terms it was simply click bait.

But all this smoke and mirrors aside, there is a real sense of anger prevailing over this felling of a single tree. I completely understand this sentiment, for many the tree stood for something, whether that was personal, aesthetic, natural history, a symbol that represented the north east or simply a focal point for a lovely photograph. But why was I so angry? I'd never been there.

Northumberland is a beautiful county and littered across this landscape are magnificent sycamore trees such as those I photographed above near Matfen in mid Northumberland a few years ago. Every farmstead, field and village has mature sycamores as a permanent symbol living in and of the landscape. Most, like the one now lying on it's side, are 200-300 years old. They are majestic and I love them, as they remind me of being a child, lazy sunny summer days when I'd be out for a wander near Rothbury and often found myself resting with my back on the trunk of a sycamore while I drank my ginger beer or ate a massive gobstopper. However I'd never been to 'the' sycamore at Sycamore Gap, a name which is itself fairly modern, as it was allegedly just made up by a Lawrence Hewer when an Ordnance Survey team visited and wanted to know what the feature was called. 

I'd driven past the Gap many times while on the 'Military Road', in the same way that many motorists on the A303 pass Stonehenge but don't stop but admire the view. I'd even stopped the car once when my Canadian cousins were visiting on their whistle stop tour of Britain so we could take a quick photo out of the car window. But although I've walked sections of Hadrian's Wall, I'd never got to the tree. And that is what interests me in two ways. Firstly it was a difficult place to reach even in daylight, so how on earth was a hefty chainsaw carried over there in complete darkness? It really is dark up there. But secondly, why did the loss of a tree I only knew of from a distance affect me?

I think answering that latter point is easy. As we age, loss becomes a larger part in our lives as our own mortality comes over the horizon, and trees themselves are meant to be permanent - we don't lose them - but if we do it matters. 

Take the image below, the oak on the right of this hedge line is known as Julie's tree.

Nobody calls it Julie's tree apart from my wife, the very same Julie and myself. This was a landscape I got to know when we first met, the wide rolling landscapes that surrounded her village in Wiltshire. We walked up here on one of my first visits and while almost identical to every other tree for miles around this tree, (along with another in the village that was fenced off and we couldn't visit anymore), became "our" tree. And that is the answer. Permanence in the landscape grabs hold of the soul and never escapes. Julie moved to Somerset in 2014 and since then we've not been back to 'our' tree. I hope it still stands and hope it is well, but in my mind it is a permanent symbol of a happy time for both of us in Wiltshire.

The image of me at the top of this post is of Blindburn at the head of the Coquet Valley in Northumberland. I love it up here but have absolutely no connection to it other than it means something to me as a casual visitor. But I feel protective towards it. Oddly though, my wife owns a house further down the valley at Harbottle which we have no spiritual connection to. Julie may own it but it is occupied by a long term tenant and his family, a local family with children which is a wonderful addition for the village. But as we don't live there, that full blown spiritual connection will be focussed on those children growing up in this wonderful part of the world, not me. But I still have some connection.

Academic careers have been made analysing what it is to have a memory, what it means to experience spirituality or a Spirit of Place, that historical record of a time and a place that means something in that precise moment of time to an individual when we are there, alive and living. In a similar vein the below image of me as a volunteer warden at the National Trust's property of Cragside in Northumberland in the 1980s is another example. I didn't perform paid work there, I never lived on the estate, but for about six years, I spent every weekend there doing something I absolutely loved, being out in nature, learning how wardens (now rangers) operate and meeting the public. I forged fantastic long term friendships there, but then I moved south and I've only returned a couple of times as a visitor. But if anything catastrophic happened to Cragside, as happened to the sycamore at Sycamore Gap, I'd be devastated. 

The wanton destruction of the sycamore on Hadrian's Wall was an abominable act.  Why someone thought it was a good idea to illegally fell a beautiful tree is not something I think anyone will find out soon. But it's gone. Many people are suggesting what happens next. An Anthony Gormley sculpture in its place. I personally hope this doesn't happen. A wooden sculpture of the tree made from the trunk. Maybe, but can this be in a museum or arts centre. I worry the site may become a bizarre shrine to something that was once loved but has gone, eradicated and will never ever come back. Nature carries on if we let it, but what replaces it will never be what was there.

There was an excellent comment by Gary Bartlett I read, who perfectly summarised my thoughts on what may happen to one option.  The National Trust and many others are suggesting the coppicing of the stump will preserve the tree. I don't know Gary, but he writes......

" It's a nice thought.... But let's be realistic. I first met this particular tree in 1990 when surveying the trees on sections of Hadrians wall. This Sycamore was in it's unadulterated natural form, three centuries in the making. It had a twin stem which added to it's aesthetic appeal.

Sycamore will respond to hard pruning but a coppice or a pollard never take on the appearance of the natural form... You can go to Sherwood forest and see 700yr old oaks that haven't been pollarded for well over a hundred years... And they still bear the signatures of the woodman's saw. There is a reasonable possibility that this tree will soon throw multiple shoots up from the stump - it will have the appearance of a scruffy thicket for a few years. With careful selection of maybe 2 or 3 dominant stems (& their protection from further vandalism); a new tree may be crafted... After 10yrs of nurture, a new multi-stem tree with a natural habit may be visibly appreciated & in 40 to 50 years it may have the appearance of a reasonably mature tree. It will be 80+ years before it has anything like the stature of what was lost & another 50yrs beyond that until it has any sense of grandeur. In the meantime, the tree will be vulnerable to pathogens - especially fungal.

It is exposed to fairly strong winds - and sucker shoots in maple species are prone to tearing out at their union with the stump or stub. This structural weakness will be ever present for the first 20-30yrs at least. Sycamore don't tend to send up daughter plants / clones away from the stump like many Prunus or Poplus species will... So new shoots will be limited to the stump - which will in time decay from the centre... There is a risk that the shock of losing the main stem might kill the tree (at this age), so regeneration is not guaranteed.

Planting a replacement will be challenging as the site is a scheduled ancient monument - so a planting site would need to be identified for a new tree - agreed by Historic England / English Heritage and the National Trust (whichever have jurisdiction on this section of Hadrian's wall). An archaeological dig would likely be required before a new tree could be planted.

The tree that has been lost will never be replicated - it was unique.

Northumberland has many tens of thousands of Sycamore trees; many of which are older, taller, broader and arguably more magnificent than this one (I urge you to seek them out - they will warm your soul).

But this tree was the iconic "Sycamore Gap" tree... It cannot be replaced by a tribute act. 

This tree seems to have become a metaphor for man's relationship with all trees... From the Amazonian rain forests, to trees being felled for access to building sites or new infrastructure. It's loss feels like the assassination of Martin Luther King or Kennedy... Senseless."

Gary Bartlett ended his piece with these words on the desire to coppice.

[I admire the optimism.... ]... Unfortunately few of us will be around to discuss this by the time this tree may become anything reminiscent of the original."

Other people will have many other views and that is how it should be. But for me now some forty eight hours into the story, this is how I'm increasingly feeling. The anger I felt at that tree's destruction has softened. I'll now never visit the tree, but, and this is important, if it had been such an important part of my life, I'd have made the effort to visit it while it still stood. Now, my mind is focused on change and the future. Let the fallen tree decay at it's own rate into the landscape, help dead wood invertebrates and plants thrive for a few decades in this most treeless of landscapes. Plant something new, maybe not in the same place, but nearby. The loss felt by my generation by this criminal act could benefit generations to come. I remember visiting Kew Gardens while on a botanical course in February 1988, just months after the October 1987 storm had ripped through the gardens. Many much loved trees from their specimen area had fallen. It was while on a walk around the site, then still closed off to the public, with Kew's arboriculturalist that he said something I've never forgotten. 

"[sic] Arriving at Kew on the morning after the storm he cried and cried for the lost trees there, many of whom he thought of as family. But then as the weeks passed he realised this was a moment to embrace change and plan for the future." 

Looking at Kew Gardens now it's almost impossible to imagine the damage caused on that October night. My hope then is the same fate befalls the toppling of this sycamore. Over the months and years we'll see change at Sycamore Gap. We as a society must and can look forward. What can we do as a society to make the landscape better for children being born in 200 years time? We have benefited from a tree being planted in the 18th Century maturing in the age of Social Media. Much like the trees below in the field next to the aforementioned friend's house only a stone's throw from Sycamore Gap which I photographed while on a walk before breakfast last November. They're just trees, no one except the odd walker will notice them. They stand there quietly removed from the consciousness of collective society. Would anyone miss these unknown trees if they were felled one night? I doubt it, and that is a most sobering thought. 

November 25th 2014 - Winter's grip

"Tracks led everywhere on the tell-tale white mantle of snow. The roe, the rabbit, the fox and the hare had left their stains. The spoor of pheasant, woodcock and blackbird marked the surface where they had striven for sustenance beneath the snow-covered earth. Below a holly bush, where snow had not penetrated, the tiny wren, his tail cocked upright, flitted about amongst the leafy carpet. At the eastern end of Blackburn Lake the leafless silver birches stood out against the white background like witches' brooms"

So wrote Henry Tegner (1901-1980) in 1953 in his story of a roe deer, The Buck of Lordenshaw.

Henry Tegner was writer, naturalist and a deer expert; president of the Deer Society, firstly gaining his knowledge of deer in Dorset before later later moving to Northumberland. Here he continued his work from the village of Whalton near Morpeth.  He wrote 25 or so books, primarily centred around the Northumbrian landscape and the wildlife that it contained. The Buck of Lordenshaw is as far as I'm aware the only life-story of a deer that has been published. His description is as mesmerising and evocative as other more familiar works about a single species, such as Tarka the Otter and yet this life and death struggle of a roe deer in and around the Cragside Estate near Rothbury is largely forgotten. As is this wonderful author.

I have a first edition copy of that book next to me as I write, and flicking through the pages I am drawn back again to that part of remote Northumberland. This week in Somerset winter has finally showed it's first fingertip grip on a mild autumn, a light frost covered the fields. December next week yet snow, significant snow, seems far off. However Tengers words on the page I am looking at, transport me back to an often taken woodland walk in winter.

"Silence reigned over Cragside save for the soft whisper of the snow as it fell upon the fir tree... It intensified the boundless silence of the whole countryside".

It is a silence I remember fondly and hope to relive again this winter. Many is the time I have walked in the winter wood. Snow knee deep at the woodland edge slowly thins as I push forward past long dead summer vegetation into the corral of trees around me, into a silent world. Is the countryside silent? Muffled maybe. Snow provides the silence of the wild, save for the crepe and scrunch of boot on snow, a tactile satisfying sound no other substrate can mimic. Tread gently and my foot silently sinks into the opaque void, but, apply a little pressure, and the tell tale crepe of compressed flakes brings joy to my activity.  

Crepe, crepe, crepe my footfall softened. I hear my breath leaving me, billowing in a condensed cloud as I move. I am removed from the ground I walk over, soft snow obliterates form and shape, all is uniform, all is silent. I stop and listen. Nothing but silence. Nothing but the thick curtain of trunk and branch, dark against the pale sun bleached winter sky. The dark wood is silently observing me, and at leisure for the first warming rays of April sun. Then these woods which now sleep a deep midwinter's sleep will awaken to spring's choral, the willow warbler, the pied flycatcher, the chiffchaff and redstart will jostle for song borne soundscape.

Today though I am remembering the joy of a wood in winter, I revisit to a silent world, lost in thought, my stride is measured and steady. Lost in my own thoughts, time stands still, yet it has begun to snow, softly. Single flakes breakthrough the canopy mesh to float silently and alone to the woodland floor. I watch them, spinning in unison before being absorbed into the snow-mass within. Without, a heavy fall has begun, dark clouds against the white landscape, swirling flakes coating the trunks of the outermost trees. But, inside the womb like cavern of a winter wood, single flakes gentle fall, in silence. I catch one in my gloved hand. So light, so delicate yet in a moment it is gone, returned to its liquid state by my internal heat.

Light is fading now, I retrace and make my return across the fields. Illuminated from below, the landscape has a pearlescence to it,  unique to a winter snowfall. Even indoors the radiance of light from below adds a glow to a room that even without looking will confirm that indeed snow has fallen overnight. That terra firma pale glow extends dusk well beyond its scheduled timeframe. A buttermilk glow may further brighten the west sky. No torch is required to light my way home today. 

Trees silhouetted against the fading light stand isolated in the white of a countryside at sleep. Maybe a robin will break my reverie as the smoke of a cottage fire drifts listlessly up into the falling flakes.  The pheasant metallic nasal call likewise drifts from some unseen hedge, it is a sound of winter to me. The countryside is closing down for the day. Along the field I walk, my face both hot and chilled with the exertion against a cooling air. I'm home, where I shall sit warmly and wish it will all remain as I remember it, for another day. I never tire of snow.

Henry Tegner's daughter Veronica Heath carried on his country diary traditions and wrote for the Guardian for 35 years. In one of her last postings she recalled 6 of her personal favourites. For me, reading Henry Tegner's simple description of the silence of snow, did what all good country writing aspires to do, to simply transports memories into a clear view, the natural elements, the suggestion to a spirit of place.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/13/country-diary-highlights-veronica-heath

Images: Top to bottom:

Fallow Deer - Stock Gaylard Estate, Dorset 2007

The view from my home-office over to Wales 2011

The big field, East Grafton, Wiltshire. 2010

Through the hedge, Somerset 2012

Julie's Tree, Wilton, Wiltshire, 2011.

21 Years Ago

Well well well....... back in the mists of the last Century I began my conservation-cum-wildlife career. In those days I was here there and everywhere in Durham and Northumberland learning my craft. But by 1990, as a lot of my work was voluntary, I'd realised I needed to get a degree to move on, and get paid for doing a job I love.

L-R John Middlemiss (Head warden), Dave Edwards (Warden), Damian Rana (Warden), Me (Volunteer), Julie Rana (wife of Damian and wardened at weekends)

Sorting out the office tonight I came across this photo. Not that I'd lost it, just I didn't know where it was these days. This photograph was my last day as "official" voluntary warden at Cragside in Northumberland, hence why we're all standing like lemons in front of a sign I'd quickly written at the end of the day. I was at Cragside last week and mentioned this photograph to Julie, strange then to see it again so soon after that conversation. Strange too to see the ramshackled uniforms. These were the days before corporate identity came to the fore. We just wore whatever we worked in.

I began there in 1986 and clocked up over 1500 hours of voluntary wardening experience there in the 4 years before this photograph was taken. Not a bad achievement considering I had a full time job too. I was also working as co-ordinator for the North Northumberland Otter Project, conducting various surveys for NGO's as well as Nature Conservancy, working for and on behalf of the National Trust's Northumbrian HQ of anything which needed doing in the Durham area, as at that time there was no NT staff down there, such as NT rep on members groups, involved with the Neptune 500 project, and heavily involved during for the hand over of Souter Lighthouse from Trinity House to the National Trust.

This latter work was fascinating as I was invited into the lighthouse by Trinity House 2 weeks before it was handed over and shown round to make notes for the National Trust's land agent, prior to being myself the NT rep on site after handover. What was lovely was that the keepers lit the lamp for me and I was allowed into the lamp room while the huge lens floated past me on a mercury bath. Something the public were banned from doing. But as I was representing the new owners, it was an absolute privilege to be in a lighthouse in those days when still an operational building run by 2 keepers. An experience no one will ever be able to get again now that lighthouses are unmanned and fully automated.

Although I kept going back to Cragside as a volunteer warden on an ad-hoc basis until 1994, it was never the same. So this photo marks both the end and the beginning of an era. It was the end of my time at Cragside, but six weeks later I started my Countryside Management degree at Newcastle. Graduating from there in 1993, I applied for and got a job with the BBC's Natural History Unit in Bristol, moved south and 18 years this November, I'm still there making wildlife programmes on the radio.

But seeing this photo brings it all back to me, that excitement of developing a career in wildlife conservation in my early twenties. If I had my time all over again, I'd do exactly the same. But where did I have the energy to do all of that work and have a full time job.....and where has the time gone!!

Great Days, great days indeed.

Bloggers Block

I don't know. Is it the weather? Is it re-reading Broke through Britain ?, or hearing on Radio 4's Excess Baggage programme about another odyssey book, which I'll begin today? Or is it being 44? Mid-life crisis anyone? But what it is, is a bloggers block. I hope it passes soon. Rarely does a moment pass when I'm not thinking "I'll write about this" or "that's a good story for the blog", but this last few weeks the sponge like receptive brain of Border Reiver, hasn't soaked up more than a gnats tear of inspiration. And a dull witted gnats tear of inspiration at that.

August is of course the silly season. In the sun kissed media world of TV Production, Executives have re-located to their Tuscany Villas to recharge the batteries. August is therefore the no-mans land of work in TV land. Not this year though for the management team, which I laughingly seem to be a part of, we seem to be busier than ever. Graphs-Charts-Forward planning is the name of the game, providing more Excel spreadsheets than is good for anyone to read. Frantic, rush and bustle. I see a cul-de-sac coming up where all this information will be log jammed against the inertia of constant reorganisation. But that's not my problem. What is my problem is all of this has had the effect of stifling the creative juices and stopping me going wildlife watching.

Though yesterday in a moment of deviation, a Vapourer moth rested on the outside of the office window. I stood looking at it for a few minutes, wondering what it was thinking as it rested on a plate glass window. Maybe it was, what are all those humans doing staring into a cube and looking so happy !! I doubt it. Then it was off to fly free through the air, while I returned to the project of the day, Contract Headcount Projection. Great!!

So what's the best way of sorting out order from the chaos? Of course. A Brainstorm session involving pink and yellow post-its. In a wine fuelled evening, this was produced on my conservatory window. It must have been me who did this, as it was still there in the morning. Either that or some Pixies and Faeries have conspired with the hedgehogs, to raid my stationary drawer. What did this frenzy of sticking things to the window produce? A colourful window? A hangover? Indeed, but precious little else. So much for blue sky management brainstorming techniques I've learnt over the years, next time it's a tried and tested method. A long walk (see book above) over a lonely hill, maybe take in a sheep or two, at least then I could photo a daffodil or a sheep for the blog. As I wrote this, a Chaffinch has begun to "Pink Pink" outside the bedroom window. One is never down, when with wildlife. I feel better already.

And then when hunting for a felt pen (life doesn't get more interesting than this) I re-found this photo. Can this really be 18 years ago? The boy Reiver is second from the right, sun glinting off his head. Would you want to visit Cragside if you'd been met by this motley crew in 1990? It looks more like Crimewatch photo-fit with the announcer saying "have you seen this gang, terrorising the public in Northumberland".

John the head warden retired not long after, Dave is still there wardening and felling trees, Damian is in Germany being a graphic designer or something and Julie still lives in Northumberland and as a write is imminent with child. Great days though. This was taken at the end of a frantic Bank Holiday Monday. Soon after we had a round of ice creams. Just weeks later I was about to head off to Newcastle University, a degree if you please Sir in Countryside Management. I have that degree. The future was a wide horizon, and the Natural History Unit, living in Somerset, writing a blog and being 44 weren't even a thought in my mind.

I will reframe this photo and hang it on the wall - a focus to who I am, not what I am, when tackling yet another tedious Excel Spreadsheet. I told you it was the silly season, and it seems the writers block has been unblocked..........

Lone Wildlife Watching

Old ex railway carrages at Whitton were wonderful for swallows nests in my childhood, 30 odd years later still standing...just.

At lunch we were discussing possible ideas for NHU inserts to the ONE Show. And in the middle of this a topic came up, which has been flexing my braincells for a while: Namely, watching wildlife on one's own. I've never worried about wandering hill and dale on my own.

As a child, I used to leave the house before breakfast and return when it was dark. During the week, wandering the fields at the back of our house in West Boldon, sometimes collecting eggs on the way - tut tut. Or at weekends down on the Coquet watching the huge trout which was always there under Lady's Bridge, trudging over the Simonsides looking for Ring Ousels (yes even then I looked for them), looking at Swallow nests in the old railway huts at Whitton, or best of all going to the Thrum and watching the Dippers while carving my name in the rocks. Actually it was while down there I met a old man, who lived on the Cragside Estate at Pethfoot Lodge well before it became part of the National Trust. No idea who he was, but he fed birds from his hands, and I used to watch him in awe, as they pecked away. I never had the nerve to do it myself. A splendid introduction to wildlife, and what a childhood.

So it came as a surprise to me many years ago when people used to say to me when leading walks or surveys, this is lovely, I always feel worried about wandering in the countryside on my own, it's so nice to go with someone who knows where to go. Lately, a few women have said the same to me when we've chatted at Sand Bay. It's a sad state of affairs when people, not just women feel worried about going out on their own to watch wildlife. Absolutely nothing wrong of group activity, but I just feel so priveledged to have had the opportunity to be wild and free, at a time when no one worried where I was from dawn to dusk.